The Sea Devils Episode Six

The one where the Doctor reverses the polarity of the neutron flow...

Don't you just love the lunacy of what looks like an old man in a crazy white wig and antique clothes beating the living shit out of rubber-suited monsters? The Third Doctor was a man of action, but looked anything like it until he burst into life, with his red-lined cape flying, as he karate-chopped, threw and hurled his enemies left, right and centre (and headfirst into walls). And after the Doctor fells two Sea Devils, he's rewarded with a lovely shoulder massage by a third Sea Devil!

As is customary in almost all of the stories featuring the Master so far, the evil Time Lord has to call on the Doctor's help, this time to build a fully-functioning revival machine to help wake up the Sea Devil hordes. It's not clear why the Master can't do it himself, because he's obviously capable, otherwise how did he build the calling device he used earlier in the story? The two Time Lords working together like old buddies makes me squirm: I really dislike this chummy relationship the two have, when all the Master has done is kill, maim and threaten innocent people. I really don't see how the Doctor can entertain being even civil with this psychopath. "I need a polarising condenser," says the Doctor. "Oh, allow me," replies the Master. It's all so annoyingly genial. A couple of episodes ago the Master was trying to kill the Doctor with a gun, a rapier and a dagger, for goodness sake!

Episode six is exceptionally action-packed, like an American action movie, and shows off the British Navy's hardware yet again to thrilling effect. The Sea Devils fight the humans in the grounds of HMS Seaspite in a proper pitched battle, although the humans come off much better because they're using rifles and cannons. Edwin Richfield, who plays Captain Hart, must have been having so much fun, leaping off a hovercraft on the beach surrounded by armed naval officers like he's re-enacting the D-Day landings, then jumping into the seat of a gun emplacement and shooting the hell out of the lumbering lizards. Hart may not have been the best written character in Hulke's canon, but these action scenes more than make up for it, painting a previously rather cynical and world-weary naval captain as the guest hero of the week. It's a far cry from Richfield's other Doctor Who role as a supremely unconvincing rubber slug (The Twin Dilemma).

Jo is ever-resourceful too, escaping from the telegraphy room by inching along one of those typical Doctor Who ventilation shafts which are always very clean, always just the right size for the female companion, and which always have loosely fitted grilles at the end which push off with ease. Jo also gets to show off her skills at driving a hovercraft, which stretches credulity somewhat, but who am I to say what she was taught at UNIT training school?

The Doctor's involvement with the building of the revival machine enables him to tinker with its design, a fundamental and rather stupid mistake of the Master's. The Doctor fiddles with the wiring so it emits a piercing sound which incapacitates the Sea Devils, and the Master seems to allow this sound to transmit for an inordinately long time, despite standing right next to it and seeing how it adversely affects a Sea Devil in the room. Later, the Doctor leaves the Master under the watch of Chief Petty Officer Myers, forgetting to tell his naval friend that his prisoner is a master hypnotist. Both Time Lords are being pretty foolish in this episode (well, this episode was broadcast on April Fool's Day!).

Soon the Doctor is chasing the Master on a jet boat, and Jon Pertwee gets absolutely soaked, although I bet he was loving it all the same! It's obviously not Roger Delgado as the Master though, made painfully clear by the stunt man turning away from the camera all the time! The chase ends back ashore, with the Sea Devils preparing another cinder toffee submersible to take the Doctor to their underwater base.

As cowardly Walker phones the Ministry to request a nuclear strike against the Sea Devils (just like that!), there's a race against time to defeat the Sea Devils before the entire conflict is brought to a devastating conclusion (although we know that the Pertwee era treats nuclear weapons as if they're just regular explosives!). The Doctor's access to the revival machine allows him to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow (the only time the Third Doctor says this "catchphrase" in his own era) and overload the Sea Devils' power, resulting in a big bang (interestingly, it's the Doctor who blows the reptiles up this time, not the Brigadier/ military).

The Doctor and the Master escape to the surface and are picked up by hovercraft, but the Master has one final trick up his sleeve - one of those rubber face masks which he must carry round with him all the time (and which look more like Anthony Ainley than Roger Delgado to me)! Hypnotising a sailor and disguising him as himself, the Master affects yet another last-minute escape in the hovercraft, chuckling away as he does (why can't someone just shoot the hovercraft's rubber skirt so it deflates before he can get away? Why can't someone follow him? Why can't his hovercraft be tracked and traced?).

And is that the tiniest hint of a look of begrudging admiration on the Doctor's face as the end titles crash in?

The Sea Devils is a worthy sequel to Doctor Who and the Silurians, and is better directed and paced than its predecessor. It may lack the moral complexities of the earlier story, opting instead to paint the Sea Devils as bloodthirsty monsters rather than creatures of reason and depth, but the scale and ambition of the story is matched by the collaboration with HM Royal Navy and some impressive location filming. And let's not forget those spooky scenes in the early episodes on the sea fort, or Malcolm Clarke's unconventional, challenging but utterly wonderful musical score. I make no apologies for loving The Sea Devils through and through.

First broadcast: April 1st, 1972

Steve's Scoreboard
The Good: The battle between the humans and the Sea Devils is thrilling.
The Bad: There are some liberties taken in Malcolm Hulke's scripts, including the fact a Parliamentary Private Secretary could realistically "request a nuclear strike", or that the Master would allow the Doctor to tinker with the revival machine.
Overall score for episode: ★★★★★★★★★☆ (story average: 8.3 out of 10)

"Now listen to me" tally: 17 - the Doctor says: "Now Jo, listen to me" when they talk through the stores room window.
Neck-rub tally: 6

NEXT TIME: The Mutants...

My reviews of this story's other episodes: Episode One; Episode Two; Episode Three; Episode Four; Episode Five

Find out birth/death dates, career information, and facts and trivia about this story's cast and crew at the Doctor Who Cast & Crew site: http://doctorwhocastandcrew.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-sea-devils.html

The Sea Devils is available on BBC DVD as part of the Beneath the Surface box set. Find it on Amazon - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Doctor-Who-Beneath-Silurians-Warriors/dp/B000ZZ06XQ